Ah, the heroes. Possibly the best part of the series. Managing your superstars to kick some major rear in the battlefield... whether it be through Durax's clones, Cronan's tough Pets or Ignus' chaotic and effective Battle Style.Unfortunately, not all heroes are gifted with such grand usage. Some are... in lack of any better words, underwhelming. Here's a list of a few heroes I found particularly ineffective in most of my experiences using them.

Before I go on, I need to state a few things.1) All heroes have their uses and can kick some serious behind when used correctly. No exceptions.2) This list is pretty much based on my experiences with these heroes, and my own comparisons. So some others might have had different experiences, which is totally fine. At the end of the day, these are my opinions, and are merely suggestions and my own observations.3) I'm including both paid and free heroes, but I won't go over any paid heroes that I haven't got.If you wanna know which ones I have...I've got all of the ones within the original Kingdom Rush.I've got all of the ones in Frontiers, aside from Dierdre and Saitam.I've got all of the ones in Origins, aside from Lynn, Bruce and Wilbur.4) I play the mobile versions, so I'll use the logic from those titles.5) I'll also include ways the hero could be "balanced" in my eyes to not actually be... underpowered.6) Not going over temporary heroes like Lucreiza or The Black Corsair, as seemingly useless or inarguably awesome they may be. (Although if I was, Bolverk would be on this list for sure.)7) This isn't going in any particular order, except for the last one, which is the hero I find least useful overall.8) Yes, all of the drawings here were done by me. Just for sake of this thread. Yeah, I'm goin' deluxe here, haha. I know I'm a bit sucky at drawing, but hey, I wanted to do something a bit special.

Let's begin, shall we?!

Karkinos.I'll admit, Karkinos is fun to use, and is actually among my favourites in Frontiers. But there's just a couple things that bug me about him, that pretty much puts him up on this list.Raw stats alone, he's basically an inferior Kahz. They both have MED armour, and the same damage output. Only difference being that Kark has only 500 HP while Kahz has 550.Kark's skills aren't the worst, but they're far from good.Iron Pincer rocks, and the extra damage is always welcome.Battle Hardened is okayish. Being RNG-based limits it a bit, but it basically turns Kark into an unstoppable tank. Unfortunately, due to a glitch, Kark can freeze in place after using this. If that wasn't the case, it could very well be his best tool.Pincer attack is decent, and is a good source of crowd control and damage. I find its cooldown far too long, however, as well as its damage not being quite high enough to justify for said long cooldown. Its weird hitbox also limits it.Shoulder cannon is pretty swell, as the 8-second long slowdown really hurts crowds. Only thing I really bother about is that I find its damage to be somewhat lacking. Just a bit.Burrow is good, and makes the guy SHINE in rising tides. Having control of the west isle in the Suken Citadel is REALLY handy, as well as having control of the northern isles in Storm Atoll. He actually needs the speed too, since he's REALLY slow otherwise.

Here's a few ideas on how to "improve" Karkinos:- Up his damage. Even with Iron Pincer maxed, he still has identical damage to Kahz, who has MUCH more to work with.- Up his armour to High.- If that Battle Hardened Glitch was solved, it'd be a perfectly fine ability. He seems to do it whenever he's about to use Shoulder Cannon, but the animation is interrupted by Battle Hardened. Might apply to Pincer Attack too, but I'm not sure.- Pincer Attack should have a buff in both damage and cooldown, to compensate for Kark's general lack of abilities and the weird hitbox.- Ditto with Shoulder Cannon, minus the weird hitbox part.- Burrow can stay exactly the same, I'm genuinely satisfied with it.

Alleria Swiftwind.Only one from the OG KR, yay. I'll admit, I felt like Alleria was the only Hero in KR to even remotely deserve to be in this list. The cast in the original is pretty darn solid (that's not to say some of the heroes there aren't OP, however. But that's another list for another day.)In terms of raw stats, she just isn't that good. She's fragile, and she doesn't hit hard at all. Denas and Bolin can take some hits and can actually lay some nasty punishment. From my experience with Alleria, she can't seem to do either of those. I'd actually say she's a bit of a step down from Gerald.Her skills are meh. Multi-Shot is her best tool, definitely. Fast cooldown. REALLY fast cooldown. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to do that much damage. I'd probably say the ability is below-average because of that. Call of the wild is... rather trashy. Although the panther can take a bit of a beating, the long respawn time and the fact that only one can be summoned at a time puts a deadly limit on the usefulness. It only really protects Alleria from a lone enemy, which usually ends up being really tough foes that can plough through your dudes anyway. It genuinely seems almost totally inferior to Ingvar's Ancestor Call or Magnus' Illusion, which are actually really useful abilities in comparison.

How to improve Alleria? Well...- Up her damage. She should really be the best dedicated physical ranged hero in the game, but she honestly feels totally inferior to the other two, who actually have other uses As well.- Buff Multi-Shot. Ability feels pretty weak, honestly.- Buff Call Of The Wild. Perhaps by adding more Panthers. I mean... theoretically, Alleria needs this sort of backup the most. So perhaps 3 or 4.

Kutsao.Cheese, quite a few Frontiers dudes, huh? As hilarious as this guy is, I find him to be the least useful paid hero in the game.Statistically, he's pitiful. Very little HP (this guy is supposed to be a pure melee hero, remember), poor damage and no armour at all. He doesn't even have a high attack rate or something to compensate, like Reg'son.He has plenty of skills to use, but they honestly aren't good at all. Aside from two.Snek Style is amazing, but at the same time a little TOO good. Lowering a foe's DMG rate by 60% is extensively handy, especially against badder dudes like Bloodshells. No complaints at all with the skill.Dragon Style is an alright AOE. Can't complain about the True AOE Damage, that's for sure.Tiger Style is terrible. 70 True Damage isn't exactly great at all, and the skill's cooldown doesn't really make up for it. Compare to Grawl, who has a similar attack that does 180 AND can instantly kill weakened foes.Leopard Style doesn't quite hit hard enough, I feel. Just a little bit more, and it'd be a great ability.Crane Style is vital, because it lets Kutsao (sort of) tank. I'm satisfied with this one, as Kutsao genuinely needs it. Badly.

Kutsao needs more training in the following martial arts...- Damage-Fu. For a physically-strong monk, his base DMG is startlingly low. He shouldn't really have to rely on Crane Style to effectively lay on the punishment.- Tai-Kwon-More-HP-Do. 400 is really low for a melee hero, even taking Crane Style into consideration. Eridan has the same HP amount, dodging capability AND has armour, so Kutsao has no real excuse here.- Range-Fu. Dragon Style's AOE should be bigger, I feel.- More-Damage-Fu. Tiger Style and Leopard Style both need damage buffs. Particularly the former.- This sounds crazy, but how about some Magic Defence-Fu? Thor had it in KR, and he kicked some serious behind with it. I'd imagine Kutsao could benefit from having it, and it'd make sense too, since he looks a bit like the Pillager.

Ashbite.Wait, WHAT?! Ashbite?! Taur, are you absolutely bonkers?!Yes. But that's aside the point.This is honestly more of a matter of comparison and perspective. To both Bonehart, as well as Young Ashbite. Not gonna bring Faustus into this, though. He's... so utterly broken that it ain't even funny.So what makes Ashbite even remotely bad? He has a comfy 600 HP, natural AOE damage and an immunity to Poison and Venom. Well...- That HP won't last forever. Enemies absolutely LOVE targeting Ashbite above all else, at least in my end. The worst part is that his death cry is barely noticeable, so it can be hard to even realise he's dead.- That natural AOE damage means a lot less when you realise that Ashbite has a very strict maximum and minimum range. It can be very hard to position him in a place where he can reliably blast baddies. Heck, I still haven't even figured out his detection zone.- Combine above with the really small AOE and slow fire rate.- Even WITH immunity to Poison and Venom, he still dies pretty quickly to being pelted by Savage Hunters.But what hurts this poor 'ol Dragon the most are his Skills. They're... quite underwhelming. Compared to his younger self, and Bonehart.Blazing Breath feels pathetically weak, doing barely more damage than his maximum possible damage from his standard attack. This is weird, because his younger self was capable of doing some pretty nasty damage with this attack. Bonehart's equivalent, Plague Carrier is superior in every single way! Its AOE is astronomical, and does much more damage.Feast is grand. Good damage, and great instant kill chance. Bonehart's equivalent, Disease Nova, May be an AOE, but doing less damage as well as no instakill pretty much makes the two equal. (You simply can't replicate that awesome feeling of instakilling a Saurian Brute with Feast. )Fiery Mist slows down foes alright. But it just doesn't feel long enough at all. Compare to... Kark's Shoulder Canon, which actually deals damage AND slows down for longer. (Wow, I'm comparing a hero in the list... to another hero in the list. Ouch.)Wildfire Barrage is also grand. 30 x 12 = 360 AOE spread over an area. PLUS fire damage. Although because of the widespread nature of the attack, the individual damage taken by each enemy can be... disappointing.Reign Of Fire is good, but not quite damaging enough to rival Bonehart's Disease, since Unstable Disease is a thing.

Now... how can the mighty Dragon match the power of... another mighty Dragon?!- Armour. He had it as a Dragonling, and there's seemingly no reason why he shouldn't have it now (especially since he's quite vulnerable, being unable to directly fight back the guys shooting at him very well). MED, I guess.- His range should be less iffy. It's really hard to tell when an enemy is in or out of his range a lot of the time.- Regular attack's AOE should be a bit bigger. Feels really small as-is.And, of course, his skills...- Blazing Breath should at least be on-par with how it was in Origins. In its current state, it's hilariously weak.- Fiery Mist should last a lot longer.- Each individual Wildfire Barrage explosion should do a bit more damage.- Reign Of Fire's overall damage should be raised dramatically to even come close to rivalling Bonehart's Disease..

Mirage.Did anyone see this coming? Probably. This is the only Hero where I'd say the first statement doesn't really apply...Well, let's start with her key issues. Her stats aren't exactly great at all in any regards. Her ranged damage is sort of nice, but not really great in any way, and can easily be out-done by Bruxa and Nivus. Her HP is just barely above the latter, making her just a bit more durable than a token Glass Cannon.Her skills aren't great in the slightest. The extra range is nice, and is probably her best tool for me. Shadow Dodge is merely a stall tactic that I don't find much use for at all. Unlike other dodges where the dodger counter-attacks, effectively turning them into killing machines (hence why Assassins and Eridan are amazing), this one merely puts Mirage ahead of the enemy. Isn't nearly as useful, since the enemy isn't being blocked much at all, and Mirage's ranged attacks are too weakish to compliment this. I find Swiftness to be completely unnecessary, as Vanilla Mirage is already pretty fast. This lets her get from one place to another fairly quickly, yes, but having great mobility doesn't account for much if you can't do much in your destination.Shadow Dance gives her some form of crowd control, albeit very little. But this is nullified by the attack having a pitifully low damage output, not even being enough to kill a Desert Thug! Y'know... the MOOKS of Frontiers?Lethal Strike is okayish, I think. Does an okay amount of damage, and has a chance of instant kill, which is nice. But it being her only real good skill works against its usefulness (not helped by the RNG-based nature of the attack.)I've played multiple maps in different settings with Mirage, and I have yet to see her outperform any other Hero I have in any regard. Which is a big shame, because I honestly like the design of Mirage a whole lot!

So how can she be "improved"? Well, here's a few ideas!- Up her Damage. Honestly, she needs to hit MUCH harder, and should at least be among the best Ranged Heroes in Frontiers. After all, she's the token "Ranged Girl" of the game.- Buff her skills. Precision can remain, Shadow Dodge should be reworked entirely to act more like the dodges of the Assassins and Eridan, Swiftness should be replaced with something else entirely (if anything, perhaps give her maxed swiftness from the start?), Shadow Dance should do much more damage and Lethal Strike should do a bit more damage, and have a somewhat higher chance of the instant kill.- Low armour. Since maxed Assassins actually have it.- Oh yeah, and she sorta doesn't have a death cry in the mobile version. That's kinda bad.

Again, I honestly like the concept and design of Mirage. And I'm rather bummed by her not being of much use to me. Ah well.

I hope you've enjoyed me rambling on about Heroes I found ineffective while playing. I still love the series, and heck, I still enjoy playing with a lot of the heroes in the list. This took me like two or three days to write up, haha.Eager to hear your opinions, though. Especially you guys who have experience with the Paid Heroes that I don't have, since I couldn't write about them here.

Last edited by Taurmega on Thu Dec 22, 2016 7:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'll make a detailed response later hopefully, but what I can say is I'm so glad you did not put Lilith on this list. So many of the regular forumers here think she is UP and inferior to most of the other heroes of Origins, but I beg to differ.

This list may or may not be justified, since you're including only the heroes that you have used, and we don't know which ones you've used. There are no Origins heroes here despite Xin and Arivan being clearly inferior heroes, and if Mirage made the list, then Dierdre should, too.

Manijure wrote:I'll make a detailed response later hopefully, but what I can say is I'm so glad you did not put Lilith on this list. So many of the regular forumers here think she is UP and inferior to most of the other heroes of Origins, but I beg to differ.

Also, nice drawings!

Thanks so much! I rarely draw this much at once (I've did all 5 in one sitting), so I was worried they'd disappoint everyone.

I initially thought she was pretty bad myself when testing her out. But I found out she's honestly quite handy in a number of ways. Same thing happened with Captain Blackthorne, actually.That, and she literally has the best Hero Spell in the game. (50% chance of 1600 True AOE Damage?! That's nuts.)

Big Bad Bug wrote:Hey, I like your sketches.

This list may or may not be justified, since you're including only the heroes that you have used, and we don't know which ones you've used. There are no Origins heroes here despite Xin and Arivan being clearly inferior heroes, and if Mirage made the list, then Dierdre should, too.

Thank you, as well!If you must know...I have all of the KR ones.Only ones I don't have in KRF are Dierdre and Saitam.Only ones I lack in KRO are Lynn, Bruce and Wilbur. (I'll probably add this in the first post in a sec.)The reason why there are no Origins heroes here is because I honestly find everyone in Origins to be really solid.

I dunno about Dierdre (I've heard she's capable of some pretty wacky stuff), but I certainly disagree about Arivan and Xin being bad.In fact, both are among my favourites in the game!Arivan has a lot to work with, and I honestly find his skills to be more effective than Vez'nan's (only skill Vez'nan has that I prefer over any of Arivan's is Soul Burn). I can't quite compare their Hero Skills, since they're way too different, but I honestly find both equally grand.

As for Xin, he's also capable of some pretty wacky stuff. Daring Strike actually lets him teleport if you time it just right, allowing him to take control of areas he normally wouldn't reach (like Arcane Quaters), which can be vital if any leaks occur. He's not quite a staller, nor a physical force, but he has some good qualities of both. And I honestly find his Hero Skill to be both hilarious and effective.But hey! Opinions are opinions. They're why I made the list in the first place after all.

Love the drawings. I also hope to come back and critique step by step and give my general thoughts now.

BBB's pet peeve, and also my pet peeve, are stat passives, because they're a waste of an ability slot because the hero may as well just have those stats to begin with. However, this is not always the case, with Reg'sons passive greatly amplifying his play style, it just doesn't make Alric as cool as he could be, for instance.

Now to blow my own trumpet: my own thread; "The Community improves heroes" is stickied near the top of the Fan Fiction thread and myself and several others have submitted our own, often completely reworked versions of middling or lacklustre heroes, including my Faustus that burns everything, and it'd be a great place to post a few of these, maybe when myself and others actually carry through with giving feedback.

The Kingmaker wrote:Love the drawings. I also hope to come back and critique step by step and give my general thoughts now.

BBB's pet peeve, and also my pet peeve, are stat passives, because they're a waste of an ability slot because the hero may as well just have those stats to begin with. However, this is not always the case, with Reg'sons passive greatly amplifying his play style, it just doesn't make Alric as cool as he could be, for instance.

Now to blow my own trumpet: my own thread; "The Community improves heroes" is stickied near the top of the Fan Fiction thread and myself and several others have submitted our own, often completely reworked versions of middling or lacklustre heroes, including my Faustus that burns everything, and it'd be a great place to post a few of these, maybe when myself and others actually carry through with giving feedback.

Thank you!Ah, I see. I kinda feel the same way, too. About that Stat-Passive stuff. I feel like Alric and Blackthorne certainly suffer a lot from that, yes (although I still think Mirage gets the shortest end of the stick with them, seeing as neither of the two passive effects particularly compliment her at all.)And that certainly sounds like a good idea! Definitely will be looking into that. c:

Minuet wrote:I really like your drawings and ideas for the heroes, very solid.

Didn't know that everyone would like 'em, haha. To the drawings bit, at least.Truth be told, I'm actually much better at spriting (If my icon and the Blacksurge in my signature is of any indication) than drawing, but that's outta the possibility train for a while.

Minuet wrote:I really like your drawings and ideas for the heroes, very solid.

Didn't know that everyone would like 'em, haha. To the drawings bit, at least.Truth be told, I'm actually much better at spriting (If my icon and the Blacksurge in my signature is of any indication) than drawing, but that's outta the possibility train for a while.

Yeah I got a pang of jealousy when I saw your avy and signature the first time.

I used to use MS Paint for my older ones, but recently moved onto Piskel (http://www.piskelapp.com) for my recent ones, since I can do a lot more stuff with it. Like animating, or colour-specific filling.

Yeah the Frontiers heroes suffer the most from others on this community but at least better than the original. I don't get why people think frontiers heroes are the worst since their play style is quite different and the original ones are some of the blandest and pointless since most of the times there there and their damage is none existed. Ignus is my least favorite since he has no armor, weak abilities and he can't burn enemies when he touches them or they hit him (since he is made of fire). I kinda find frontiers heroes effective in their own way but it gets foreshadowed by Alric.

Actually, the original housed some of the most OP heroes in the entire series. At least, that's how it felt when I compared stuff between games.

For example, Malik starts off with more HP at Level 1 than the average melee hero has at Level 10 in other games, and it grows to huge numbers when maxed, AND he gets armour on top of that. Not counting heroes that rely on stat passives (lookin' at you, Grawl), Malik pretty much becomes the biggest HP Wall in the entire series. If you count 'em, he comes at 2nd, which still ain't bad.And I find Ignus to be among the best heroes in the game!All of his attacks, including his regular melee attack, do True Damage. And quite a lot of it, too.Frenzy and Surge Of Flame do AOE damage, making him ideal to kill off Crowds. But Surge Of Flame actually also lets him tank against all kinds of foes, since it heals him. I've heard horror stories of Ignus tanking out against a Magma Elemental with that skill. The only thing I don't like about Ignus is that he still takes damage from Infernal Combustion. Yet is immune to being pelted by Flareons... Yeah, weird.

As for Frontiers... I actually only used Alric for the campaign on my initial run, since I didn't feel like grinding (Mirage did NOT leave a good first impression for the other heroes) up the other ones.After I beat the regular campaign, levelled up everyone by massacring a buncha Saurians, I found out that the other heroes were actually really good. In their own ways. To the point where I rarely used Alric anymore.(Although I got a bit disappointed, since I got Kahz and Bonehart first )

Taurmega wrote:Actually, the original housed some of the most OP heroes in the entire series. At least, that's how it felt when I compared stuff between games.

For example, Malik starts off with more HP at Level 1 than the average melee hero has at Level 10 in other games, and it grows to huge numbers when maxed, AND he gets armour on top of that. Not counting heroes that rely on stat passives (lookin' at you, Grawl), Malik pretty much becomes the biggest HP Wall in the entire series. If you count 'em, he comes at 2nd, which still ain't bad.

Be careful when comparing heroes between games. If you notice, the power levels are so significant that the Shadowmoon enemies in KRF needed to be buffed by about 20% HP when they transitioned to Castle Blackburn in KR1. Since KR1 wasn't designed with heroes in mind, the levels aren't balanced around having heroes, so they make the game easier compared to others. Still, the only ones that I'd consider OP are Oni and Elora from that game. Most others don't skew the balance too much one way or another except for Bolin, who is very UP.

Taurmega wrote:And I find Ignus to be among the best heroes in the game!All of his attacks, including his regular melee attack, do True Damage. And quite a lot of it, too.Frenzy and Surge Of Flame do AOE damage, making him ideal to kill off Crowds. But Surge Of Flame actually also lets him tank against all kinds of foes, since it heals him. I've heard horror stories of Ignus tanking out against a Magma Elemental with that skill. The only thing I don't like about Ignus is that he still takes damage from Infernal Combustion. Yet is immune to being pelted by Flareons... Yeah, weird.

While Oni is immune to Onfernal Combustion yet vulnerable to Flareons and fire pits. Go figure.

Taurmega wrote:As for Frontiers... I actually only used Alric for the campaign on my initial run, since I didn't feel like grinding (Mirage did NOT leave a good first impression for the other heroes) up the other ones.After I beat the regular campaign, levelled up everyone by massacring a buncha Saurians, I found out that the other heroes were actually really good. In their own ways. To the point where I rarely used Alric anymore.(Although I got a bit disappointed, since I got Kahz and Bonehart first )

I only don't use Alric because I find him boring. With 3 passives, the only one that provides him an addition to his playstyle is Spiked Armor, the only one that doesn't give him higher stats, because it encourages me to use him in melee against enemies that do lots of damage so that they take more damage. That actually contributes something, unlike having more health and damage in place of a cool skill. It stinks that he's so much stronger than many other heroes yet not nearly as fun.

If they gave either Oni or Ignus full invincibility to Infernal Combustion, Flareons, and Fire Pits, then the Burning Torment MC would honestly have its difficulty cut in half. That's why the split up the immunities. It doesn't make sense canonically or aesthetically, but it does make perfect sense balance-wise, which is the most important aspect of the 3 when it comes down to it.